


Save Me Before I Become My Demons

by KilLinggames



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Because it's them, F/M, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilLinggames/pseuds/KilLinggames
Summary: The fight was fast and bloody, both of them born and bred in violence. He knew that he would need to finish it quickly, before he passed out from blood loss. Before the abyss consumed him whole.Matt, as always, held back, an iron grip around the devil inside him; a clawing desperate thing. His restraint, his humanity, that they have tried, again and again, to take away from him.OrThe Chaste has them both, and Matt and Elektra save each other from losing their humanity.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JeezLouiseWoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeezLouiseWoman/gifts).



> For JeezLouiseWoman at the Daredevil Exchange =) Hope you like it!
> 
> Based on the prompt:
> 
> Demons, by Starset. 
> 
> I cannot stop this sickness taking over  
> It takes control and drags me into nowhere  
> I need your help, I can't fight this forever  
> I know you're watching,  
> I can feel you out there
> 
> Take me high and I'll sing  
> Oh you make everything okay (okay, okay)  
> We are one in the same  
> Oh you take all of the pain away (away, away)  
> Save me if I become  
> My demons

_ Beep. Beep. Beep.  _

Matt returned slowly. The world was out of focus, and he felt disoriented. Everything moved around him in a dizzying haze; in his ears, a cacophony of ringing and crashing sounds; but muffled, as if he was listening  through a thick wall of water. 

But then there it was; that all-too familiar heartbeat.  _ Thump, thump, thump,  _ in its familiar, steady rhythm. The scent of sweat and iron and blood. And orchids. The presence that promised fire, and adrenaline; blood and pain. That promised freedom in  darkness ; in giving in. 

“Elektra.” He croaked out, throat dry from disuse. 

Why was he here? Why was  _ she _ here? He couldn’t remember. 

“Am I dead?” 

He should be. 

“Oh Matthew, always so  _ dramatic _ .” 

Her voice was bitter chocolate; smooth, dark,  and  _ decadent _ _. _ His heart swelled, and it  _ hurt.  _

And he knew, then. That he was alive, that this wasn’t just a hallucination. His imagination could never do her justice. Could never conjure, in just the right way, the way she spoke his name. Tender, yet seductive. Like a siren-call that pulled him in, dragged him down, down,  _ down,  _ and did not let go. 

He’d never been strong enough, even when he thought he knew better, to walk away.

So many questions swam around in his head.  _ Where were you, Elektra? How are you alive? Why did you leave me?  _

“Why am I alive?” He asked instead. Why, why,  _ why.  _

Elektra did not respond in words. She took his hand in hers. Gently, carefully. And brushed her lips softly against the torn skin of his knuckles. 

“Are you real?” 

“Sleep, Matthew. Things will be clearer, tomorrow,” she whispered into his palm. “I promise.” 

He wanted to protest, to scream and yell for answers. But an unnatural fog settled over his mind, and his eyelids suddenly felt too heavy to lift. 

Between one thought and another, he’d slipped back into  the abyss.

* * *

_ Elektra watched him sleep,  _ _ restless, _ _ in his too-small infirmary cot.  _

_ She reached out a hand to brush a stray hair away from his face.  _

_ “Elektra, where did you go?” He mumbled _ _ deliriously. _

_ She retrieved her hand, and slipped back into the cold  _ _ night air. _

* * *

He was lying on hard ground, like frozen needles digging into his sensitive skin. 

She was there again, on the other side of the bars. 

He sat up and groaned. 

“Matthew.” 

He reached his hand out, hoping for… Affirmation. Recognition.

She reached back. 

“I’m sorry.” 

* * *

_ Elektra had snuck into the church again.  _

_ It wasn’t difficult--there were so many dark corners to hide.  _

_ She watched as Matthew tried, so desperately, to find himself again. A poor imitation of the violence that he’d lived and breathed with her. That he was made of, made  _ for. 

_ He suddenly stilled, cocking his head in the way that meant he was trying to listen for something. _

_ He didn’t notice as his opponent came in close enough to knock him down.  _

_ Down, but never out. _

_ “Let’s go again.” _

_ And Elektra knew it was time to leave.  _

* * *

The fight was fast and bloody, both of them born and bred in violence. He knew that he would need to finish it quickly, before he passed out from blood loss.  Before the abyss consumed him whole.

Matt, as always, held back, an iron grip around the devil inside him; a clawing desperate thing.  His restraint, his  _ humanity,  _ that  _ they  _ have tried, again and again, to take away from him.

He hit the unyielding stone floor on his hands and knees, rolling aside just in time to avoid a blow to his spine. He struggled back up, staggering on his feet.

He threw his fist forward, not quite reaching far enough. But his opponent now teetered, unsteady, on leaden feet.  Matt struck out again, and he landed, hard, on his back. He did not get the chance to get back up. 

Matt set upon him with his fists, exhaustion and desperation spurring him on, the devil overtaking his mind. 

By the time he finally pulled back, all that was left was red, red,  _ red.  _ He didn’t need sight to see, to  _ know-- _ remembered enough from seeing the blood and cuts on his father’s face.  _ Born and bred in violence,  _ all of them.

“Finish it,” commanded the voice that he lived and died by, in that godforsaken place.

Matt staggered back in horror at what he’d done, at what he was being asked to do, a litany of  _ nos  _ tumbling from his lips. 

He felt hands grip him by the shoulders, by the throat. Forcing him to face the still body before him. 

“Finish it,” the voice repeated, a hint of anger beginning to color its tone. 

He heard the sickening sound of blades against flesh, against bone. And the shape in front of him breaking, dividing,  _ multiplying. _

“Oops, sorry. I guess my hand slipped.” 

* * *

“I’m sorry.”  _ Thank you, _ he wanted to say instead, but couldn’t muster up the courage to let the words slip past his lips.

“You’re welcome, Matthew,” Elektra replied from the cell beside his, responding to his unspoken words.

* * *

_ “God forgive me.” He’d pleaded, kneeling in supplication to the God that had abandoned him long ago. _

_ “Oh, Mathew, no...” _

_ Elektra’s heart clenched. Is this what she’d done to him? Her legacy on his body, the mark she’d left upon his soul. She’d taken something beautiful, something precious, and let it  _ _ turn _ _ into ashes in her hands. _

_ The men never saw t _ _ heir end coming _ _ , before all that was left of them were bloody  _ _ pieces _ _ of flesh on the asphalt. She could see her name forming on his lips, but stole his words away from him before they could  _ _ be realized. _

_ She cradled his unconscious body to her chest,  _ _ and stole away.  _

* * *

“Elektra, why do you stay?” 

Matt heard her release a long, drawn-out breath. 

“A weapon needs a master, Matthew,  _ needs  _ to be wielded. This is where I belong.” 

Matt shook his head, too quickly, ignoring the renewed pain that bloomed in his head at the motion.

“No.  _ No.  _ You are  _ not _ just a weapon, changing hands for someone new to use. You are more than this, Elektra. More than  _ theirs.  _ ”

“No I’m not.” Her voice sounded sad and patronizing. Like he was too naive, too innocent, to understand the true nature of this world they’d fallen into, to which they both belonged. 

“Yes you  _ are. _ I’ve seen it. I’ve seen  _ you. _ You belong to no one but yourself,” a small, bittersweet smile formed upon his lips, and his voice grew quiet, “not even to me.”

“Matthew,” she said, resigned. “You’ve always been the only one who ever saw any good in me, even when it isn’t there.”

Matt didn’t argue further. It would take more than just this one conversation, he knew, to convince her. To make her see what he saw. He swore to himself then, that when _if_ they got out of here, he’d make her a believer, even if it took him the rest of his life. 

They were quiet for a long moment after that, each lost in their own thoughts, enjoying each others’ presence. Matt was struck, once again, with wonder at the fact that she was alive. That she was  _ here, with him. E _ ven if...

“They’re going to try again.” 

“I know,” she replied, voice barely above a whisper. 


	2. Chapter 2

The world was spinning, blurry, and somehow _incomplete._ There were hands on her, holding her up, holding her _down._ She did not-- _could not_ understand. 

But she could hear, vaguely, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, of bones creaking and breaking. Shouts of rage, and fury, and desperation. 

And her name, repeated over and over again, through cracked and bloody lips.

There was pain, and she hit the ground _hard._ Hands in her hair, on her face. Raining blows down all over her body. 

But the Black Sky, even lost, even broken, could never be less than what it was. 

The hands disappeared, and she let the darkness take her. 

* * *

They found out, later, that she’d killed two of their number. They wouldn’t try this again, she knew. 

They were already too few. 

* * *

“I can’t, I can’t,” Matthew cried.

“Hush, Matthew. I know.” He wasn’t a killer, a murderer, not like she was. He had some light in him still, a light she’d tried to extinguish in her selfish desire to belong, to be _seen_. But _no more, no more._

"I don't know how much more of this I can take.” His voice cracked at these words, “I’m going to die, Elektra. Either way, I won’t come out of this alive.” 

She knew he wasn’t just talking about his life. Knew that what he feared the most was to lose _himself_. To leave the Devil as all that remained of who Matthew Murdock used to be. 

She reached her fingers as far as she could, hoping to touch, to reassure. 

“I won’t let them. I promise.” 

* * *

They had run out of time. 

After what they’d done to her, the logical next step would be to threaten Matthew’s friends. And she knew he would break, then. 

~~Only _she_ was allowed to break him. He was _hers._ And she his.~~

A few whispered promises into the right ears, and Elektra had in hand two doses of adrenaline. She used the needle on one to get out of her cell.

One shot went into Matthew. He’d need it, battered and bloodied as he was. She was more resilient, in her second life. 

He gasped awake, jolted unpleasantly out of unconsciousness.

“Elektra!”

She hushed him with a single gesture. 

“We need to leave, _now.”_

He would follow her anywhere.

* * *

They had left a few of them alive; individuals carefully selected by Elektra herself over her months with the Chaste. 

They still needed help, after all, to fight the Hand. 

But they knew now not to come for them again, to interfere. 

Matt supposed he’d have to live with that. 

And Elektra--Elektra was beautiful in her rage; in her bloodlust. 

He’d finally given up on trying to convince himself that what he felt for her was anything less than awe; than utter devotion. The darkness within him called out to hers; fear and guilt and envy mixing within him in a dizzying mess of emotions.


	3. Epilogue

“So, London?” They no longer had to hide, but he knew she could never settle in one place too long. Not even for him. 

Matthew kissed those words into her skin, into the scar on her neck that reminded him of simpler times. 

But it was finally, blissfully over, and they were safe. They were _together._

“Matthew,” Elektra said, pulling back to look at him. She cupped his cheek with one hand, trying to let him down gently. “You love New York.” 

He took her hand from his cheek, holding it firmly between both of his own. 

“Wherever you run, I run with you.” He said, echoing the words he’d said to her what felt like lifetimes ago. 

She was silent for a long moment, and all Matt could hear was the pounding of his own heart settling into her rhythm. 

Then she smiled. He could feel it in the way her hand relaxed in his grip, the way her breaths whispered softly in the cold air. 

“There _are_ sexy places to run.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thx to i_am_not for betaing. And Agent0069


End file.
